Flossie turned a distressed face up to the young man at her side. "He never thinks of you, Hal," she said. it's you who'll take care of me, won't "And you? "Darling, as if you need question that?" "But, Hal, I hate the thought of this guardian he has appointed," she added in a breathless whisper. "I've never seen him, I don't remember him; I wish he wasn't coming. Oh, I wish we'd known before, and got father to alter it all. Oh, poor, poor dad! I wish he would think of you!' Hal put his arms round her and held her to him. Never mind me now, darling," he said. "It will be all right later, we must not disturb him. Don't worry him now, darling. Don't mind me." She turned at his words, and once more bent down to the dying old man. 66 "Not here yet, lass? he whispered. Eddie not here yet? No; no sign of him. 66 But he has got to come a long way, hasn't he, father? Flossie said. 'Ay, from America ; but t' lawyer sent fo' him over a week ago. He knows, and it's all put up safe for thee, lass-all t' brass; and a good man is Eddie Gates to have to tak' care o' thee." Flossie shivered just a little. She knew nothing of Eddie Gates, and all she had ever seen of him was a faded and dingy portrait of a young man in cld-fashioned clothes which hung in their little parlour downstairs. That he must be a man of forty or thereabouts she guessed, for when he had left for America, sixteen years ago, he had been & young man. His father had been John Garth's odest friend, and it was Alfred Gates who, after his wife died, lent Garth the money which founded his fortune. Terrified by the tragic end of his wife, sweated by his master at the mill where he worked, John had determined that his child should run no such risk, and from Alfred Gates he had borrowed a small sum to free him from the mill and start him in a small cobbler's shop. The town had grown since then, and John with it. Before many months were passed he had paid back his loan and was beginning to save money, and from that time he never looked back. Great changes had taken place. The town was large enough for a city; John's small shop was small still, and he had never moved out of it or increased his expenses in any way. But few people know that two of the largest shops and one of the busiest factories in the place were owned by him. He could have astonished some of them if he had liked, and sometimes he had been sorely tempted, for Flossic was as good and as pretty as any of the grand ladies who drove about the streets in their fine carriages and splendid dresses, and there had been times when he had looked at her with the desire to "put her high," as he expressed it, strong upon him. a man from over the sea, son of his old friend, the man who had been so quick to see the look of death in his wife's face sixteen years ago. It was to the thought of this man he clung now on his deathbed. He had been cabled for, and was on his way to John Garth. The old man was only waiting now to see Eddie before he died. No one else would do, not even Hal Rivers, whom he had distrusted from the first, in spite of Flossie's love for him, and his apparent honesty and straightforwardness. A bank clerk! The very suggestion of it had roused Garth's suspicions, and he had been afraid always lest he should be wanting his "brass" and not his girl. Who could tell what secrets bank clerks knew? Who could say if Hal knew of his riches or not? But it would be all right when Eddie Gates came ! Flossie knelt motionless against the bed, her eyes on his face. He was drifting away into unconsciousness again, and she dropped her head on the counterpane and broke into smothered sobbing. Hal knelt beside her. His mind The old man did not even hear him. was full of shadows, and his ears full of sounds. Hal crept quietly from the room and downstairs. He closed the outer door softly behind him, and went in search of Mrs. Sumners. It took him some moments to find her, and when he came back he saw that a tall man dressed in a black suit of clothes stood at John Garth's door. But Lancashire caution and a distrust bred of his experience of years ago had always prevented him. And now the only man he felt he could trust to take charge of his girl and her great wealth was Have you Bing-Banged yet? Read the particulars on page ii. of cover. It was opened as he looked, and, for a moment, seeing Flossie's white face, Hal hesitated, tempted going!" Flossie clung for a moment round his neck. "Oh, Hal, my dearest, so do I! But we can't help it. Mr. Gates is nice, after all, and quite interested in us. Besides, he was father's friend, and he is only doing what he thinks right. "Yes, I know. But-Utah! If you were going to any other place I didn't like, I shouldn't care quite so much; but people tell such strange stories about that place. I suppose it is stupid of me, but I don't like the sound of it, Floss." 'Oh, but I shall be all right, and I can't do anything else. Mr. Gates must go back to his business, and, besides, he has promised to bring me over again in a few months, and then he thinks he will give his consent to our speedy marriage. Andoh, oh, Hal-I suppose he is right, when you think of it. Father left him full control over me, and, after all, he doesn't know much of you, does he? And father told him nothing about you. So, for all Mr. Gates knows, you may be an out-and-out villain." "Yes, I suppose it's all right," Hal agreed slowly. "Oh, I wish you weren't rich at all, and belonged to me and nobody else! Surely, if he wouldn't consent to our marriage, he could have trusted you with my sister? You've known her long enough." Flossie sighed a little. "Yes, I do wish he had, too," she said. "But he won't hear of it; he was a little bit cross, too, when I tried to persuade him. But he really is all right, Hal dear, he means well, I'm sure." Hal was silent, somehow strangely disturbed. A fortnight had passed since her old father's death, and Eddie Gates seemed all that the old man had believed him to be-doing his best for Flossie, thoughtful and considerate and friendly to Hal. But two days ago had come this suggestionthat Flossie should go back with him to Utah.. Yesterday, when they had talked and talked and tried to persuade him to let her stop with Hal's sister, the suggestion had become a command, and to-day it was more than that it was a definite order to be ready to sail the following week. "It's business, Hal," Flossie said, clinging to him. "He must go, he says, but I do wish it weren't all so sudden, and that you were coming too. I do wish you were coming with us." Utah!" Hal said suddenly, and beginning to pace up and down the small kitchen in which Flossie, heiress though she was, had lived all her Order now next week's Answers' Library, which will life. "I don't know what the place is like nowadays, but terrible things used to go on there oncethings that won't bear thinking about, let alone talking about. I suppose it's all right nowadays." All right? Why, of course, it must be, Hal. Things don't happen now like they used to. Everything is different all over the world. I know what you are thinking of, Hal; but Mr. Gates isn't a Mormon, or anything like that. He is married; he has told me all about his wife, and says we shall be friends." Hal paced up and down. A little frown had crept between his brows. Something cold seemed suddenly to have entered his heart. He glanced at Flossie, and the chill fear laid a grip on him. Suppose anything happened to her? Suppose all was not well? Suppose-but bah! What nonsense! Why should he imagine things? And all because the place Mr. Gates happened to live in was Utah. There were other people besides Mormons there-very many hundreds of people. It was a civilised place nowadays; Salt Lake City, a grand town. as he had heard, full of fine buildings and great streets. What harm could befall Flossie there? Everything was different now. The Mormons did not act as they used to do. It was foolish, no doubt, but this obstinate feeling clung. He could not overcome his dislike of the place. And it won't be for long," Flossie went on, getting up and putting her hand on his arm. "Mr. Gates has promised definitely to bring me back in six months' time." "Six months! It's an eternity!" groaned Hal. Oh, Flessie, how can I bear it! Oh, if he would only let us be married. If only you were twentyone, I'd carry you off. I'd run away with you, Floss. But has he really promised that to bring you back in the summer? Flossie nodded her head, and then put both her arms about his neck. "Yes, it's a real promise, Hal," she said, "and you will look forward to that. If we think only of that the time will go quickly enough; and then, if we do all he wants, he may let us be married directly we get back. If I'm very good out there, I dare say he will. I always got my way with father, Hal, and I expect I shall with Mr. Gates, too, don't you ? She laughed lightly, looking up in his face with her own dimpling and smiling. Old John Garth had idolised and spoilt his only child. Her shining head had been the brightest thing on earth to him; her blue eyes the stars that guided his life. He had lived only for her, had worked hard and early and late, and thought only for her. But he had made a deadly and fatal mistake when he gave her and the money he had worked so hard for over into Eddie Gate's keeping. Hal bent his dark head over her fair one, holding her close to him, looking down into her face as though his eyes would never tear themselves away from it again. And so they stood. while a shadow darkened the doorway. Neither of them noticed it. "And you will come back to me-oh, promise! Flossie, my darling, you will come back?" "Oh, of course, I shall! I can't live away from you, Hal! Why, you are all I have nownow dad is gone!" Her voice broke. She clung to him, and, bending, he kissed her pretty face over and over again. contain a splendid story, "The Voice that Failed." |